6 replies to this topic

[cypan]

Most foods seem to have pros and cons. Bananas are great sources of potassium, but also super packed with sugar. Apples are decent sources of fibre (for a fruit), but again lots of sugar. Tomatoes, however, are per calorie an even richer source of potassium than bananas, yet are also low in sugar and high in many other nutrients. I was just curious if there's something I'm missing about eating many of these tasty fruits every day. I've been eating upward 750 to 1000 g or so of this stuff daily. I've read through lots of threads on here, and it seems people take tomato paste for the rich source of lycopene and other nutrients, but it's hard to find much opinion on a high daily intake of raw tomatoes. Is there any obvious (or non-obvious, I guess) reason I should be more careful about moderation of these seemingly incredible fruits? (I generally try to be careful about taking too much of any one consumable due to the usual "great source of X, but also full of Y, so eat in moderation!")

[TheFountain]

Interestingly people talk about how much sugar, specifically fructose is contained in banana's, then how wonderful blueberries are in this regard. According to a couple lists I have seen though, these two fruits have identical fructose content per 100 gram serving. I think one or two banana's a day is fine. I eat this as well as some grapes, strawberries and other types of berries and never see any weight gain issues. I eat one whole tomato a day in my salads in addition to a can of tomato paste. No problems encountered here.

Edited by TheFountain, 24 April 2012 - 02:22 AM.

[cypan]

Oh, didn't mean to give off the wrong impression. I don't avoid bananas entirely; had one or two today, in fact. The beautiful thing about these fruits is most of them, despite sugar content, have low glycemic index. I just meant that eating a whole lot of them could be an issue, especially with calorie restriction diets. I have found, however, that tomatoes allow me to consume lots of potassium and other rare nutrients in high quantities without overdoing energy consumption, but what I don't know is if eating lots of them can result in other unintended consequences.

Considering I eat up to six to seven times the number of tomatoes per day you do, I feel that I have some reasonable motivation to ask if I'm missing an important detail regarding overdoing it.

[TheFountain]

I highly doubt you will encounter any problems. Allergy to these foods is so rare it is hardly worth a mention. But I would shoot for diversity where potassium intake is concerned. Tomatoes are good, Bananas are fine. But try sweet potatoes, avocados and an assortment of other vegetables that contain lesser amounts of potassium but will serve you well when combined in a salad or something.

Edited by TheFountain, 25 April 2012 - 07:44 AM.

[cypan]

Hmm... I was going to include avocados in my diet, but the omega-6 fatty acid content scared me off. The glycemic index of sweet potatoes made me wary (albeit it's better than other potatoes for sure) of including them in my diet. I used to eat quite a bit more variety, but for economical reasons, I've been converging on the most nutritionally efficient individual foods I could enjoy eating in economically feasible quantities. Huh... come to think of it, I used to prepare salads of lettuce and/or kale, some spinach, peppers, tomatoes, and other goodies, and now I find myself pretty much eating a bunch of tomatoes, bananas, apples, peas, and olives all separately. Perhaps you're right that I should go back to trying to add variety, but potassium was one of the most difficult nutrients for me to optimise that I got carried away with the super-rich foods.

Anyway, as long as there's no obvious danger with such a high intake of tomatoes, I can rest assured that I'm not unknowingly screwing myself over. I remembered seeing no such warnings about, say, lycopene overdoses, and everything else seems reasonable (at least as far as I can tell using CRON-O-Meter, my tool of choice for dietary engineering). Thank you.

[Carroll]

Eating too much tomatoes is not good for the health.
Eating too much potatoes can be harmful for the liver health and can lead to hepatitis.

[misterE]

The glycemic index of sweet potatoes made me wary (albeit it's better than other potatoes for sure) of including them in my diet.

It shouldn't. The glycemic-index (GI) measures how fast a food breaks down into glucose. Some foods don’t have any glucose (like fish or olive-oil) and some foods have a lot (like potatoes). Obviously eating the foods with little to no glucose will be low-GI, while foods with lots of glucose would be high-GI.

The GI is useless in terms of insulin-secretion. Some foods that are high-GI (like rice) make you secrete less insulin than beans (which are low-GI), beans cause a massive secretion of insulin. Beef is another food that is low-GI yet makes you secrete more insulin than pasta made of white-flour (which is high-GI) [1].

Saturated-fat and fructose are both low-GI, but are well known for their impairment of insulin signaling. Whole-grains are high-GI but are well known for their insulin sensitizing effects. Eating a low-GI diet guarantees you will eat a diet high in fat and protein. High-fat/high-protein diets are well known for causing many diseases and accelerating the aging process.

[1] Am J Clin Nutr. 1997 Nov;66(5):1264-76. An insulin index of foods: the insulin demand generated by 1000-kJ portions of common foods. Holt SH, Miller JC, Petocz P.

Edited by misterE, 09 November 2012 - 04:05 AM.